Publisher: Search Engine Watch Blog

Conversion tracking can be the bane of a PPC professional's existence. And that's because there are so many variables. Every business has a different website and CMS, a different thing they want to track, a different web development team with different proficiencies. All these different variations make this part of PPC one of the hardest parts to implement. Though tricky, conversion tracking is essential.

Last week was quite eventful for PPC marketers. Google announced a number of changes coming to AdWords and Analytics during the Google Performance Summit, with mobile being the huge focus. Google revealed several incredible mobile statistics . We were introduced to Expanded Text Ads. We got a sneak preview of the new Google AdWords interface. And so much more. Another big change was what Google described as "the next generation" of local search ads.

Announced on the Google Small Business blog yesterday is a new tool to test how your site works across different devices. It seems to be a combination of the mobile friendly and page speed tools, though it is useful to have these tests in one place. According to Google: On average, people check their phones more than 150 times a day, and more searches occur on mobile phones than computers. But if a potential customer is on a phone, and a site isn't easy to use,

Last month, ClickZ Intelligence published its report into 'The State of Mobile Advertising', in partnership with Search Optics. Among the report's findings was the revelation that mobile advertisers are missing out on hyperlocal opportunities in a big way. As our Editor in Chief Graham Charlton observed in the article linked, "With the near ubiquity of smartphones, and their growing use to access digital content,

GIFs are nothing new, but their use is more popular than ever. Here's why brands should include them as part of their content marketing strategy. GIF, which is an acronym for Graphics Interchange Format , was introduced back in 1987 by Steve Wilhite of CompuServe as a new way to present a moving image. The internet quickly embraced the GIF and the fact that it's still relevant after 29 years proves its value in web terms. Here's why' 1.

SEO is a challenging and rewarding career for people from a number of different types of backgrounds. It requires a degree of comfort with numbers, as SEO professionals should be able to look at the data coming in and understand how to make adjustments to improve the success of their campaign. SEOs should also understand how to take the big picture- of business goals and objectives- and be able to translate it into a marketing SEO strategy.

Mobile design focuses, or should focus, on the user. This so-called user-centric design has generated a healthy obsession with the three Us: user experience (UX), usability and user interface (UI). These terms, and the roles associated with them, are commonly mistaken and/or used interchangeably. This is not entirely unsurprising as there are no ubiquitous definitions and some overlap.

The speed of mobile pages isn't currently used as a ranking factor by Google, but that will change with the next mobile friendly update . At the Search Marketing Summit in Sydney today, and reported by Jennifer Slegg , Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes confirmed that page speed would be a factor in the next mobile update. Illyes wouldn't be pinned down to a date, but it seems we're looking at a matter of months.

Last week we launched ClickZ Intelligence , a new service providing actionable insights into the worlds of digital marketing and ecommerce. One of the reports we launched with is the first in a series of in-depth and practical guides to achieving m-commerce success: The DNA of a Great M-Commerce Site, Part 1: Planning . With the number of consumers who want to purchase products and services using a mobile device rapidly increasing,

Internal linking is a key SEO tactic, one which allows websites to send clear signals to Google on the relative importance of various pages. It also works from a user experience perspective, helping visitors find pages that are relevant or potentially useful to them. It's something I place great importance on as an editor, as it's one part of SEO that I can control, and I've seen the benefits for sites I've worked on.

Google is on track to make more than $70bn in revenue in 2016, and the lion's share of that number will be generated by its insanely successful advertising business. As I'm sure you know, advertisers pay a fee every time somebody clicks on a link in one of their ads. Some of the costs per click being paid are absolutely staggering, though they must be worth it, from the advertiser's perspective.

Google's I/O developer conference brought several huge announcements about Google's future direction and projects, including two new technologies which demonstrate just how important voice search and natural language processing are to the company's future development. The first, Google Assistant, is a voice-activated digital assistant which builds on "all [Google's] years of investment in deeply understanding users' questions", as Google's blog declared.

It's best to do one thing really, really well - is one of Google's "10 things" philosophy , written when the company was in its infancy. This is a great mantra for mobile projects to follow. Where the young Google focused on excellence in web search, so mobile sites and apps must focus on meeting an identified user need in the most effective (usability) and rewarding (user experience) fashion.

Google has introduced new tools and features to AdWords to specifically address the consumer shift towards mobile. The changes and additions have been announced at todayÃ¢â¬â¢s Google Performance Summit, and include expanded description lines, responsive display ads to fit different devices and formats, more customized bidding options, and pilot features for Google Maps which allow advertisers to introduce more information about their businesses.

Since writing our comprehensive and barn-stormingly popular complete guide to Search Console a couple of weeks ago, Google has since released a few updates to make webmasters lives a darn sight easier. WeÃ¢â¬â¢ll discuss a few of these later in the article, but first letÃ¢â¬â¢s reveal the news that Google Search Console now lets you tie all your managed multi-platform sites together and track the combined visibility in search.

People love using search engines, but what do they search for? Here are the best ways to discover the most popular topics, keywords and trending stories. Google Trends : Allows you to discover the most popular topics on GoogleÃ¢â¬â¢s database, along with the latest trending news worldwide or by regions and subregions. It also allows you to compare the popularity of multiple terms at a time and the relevant search queries since 2004. Also,

As video content increases, itÃ¢â¬â¢s time for brands to understand their consumers, in order to deliver the most relevant ads to them. Wibbitz conducted a survey in March about video consumption and consumer sentiments regarding video advertising , hoping to help publishers and consumers reach a middle ground. Every publisher looking to expand its services to video content needs to understand its audience first, hearing their needs,

With the advertising industry becoming more and more competitive each year, many online advertisers are now using search marketing to supplement their organic search results as a way to stand out from the crowd. Although it comes at a price, this form of marketing can provide relevant, high-quality traffic and help with brand exposure, two qualities of many which can be highly beneficial for online retailers.

Part one of our series on Why Companies Create Content we looked at changing customer perception and part two focused on making use of public opinion. This next instalment explores how companies can best construct content to respond to the frequent (and not so frequent) queries that come from their audience. Part three: To answer customer questions As consumers weÃ¢â¬â¢re a demanding bunch Ã¢â¬" we donÃ¢â¬â¢t just expect excellent customer service ,